Michigan

Honor Fred Meijer by giving like he did (guest commentary)

In the wake of Fred Meijer’s death Nov. 25, people have shared many remarkable stories about his remarkable life. One story describes how he deftly avoided an impending offer from Sam Walton to buy the Meijer business back in the 1970s. Walton, of course, ended up just borrowing the supercenter concept pioneered by Meijer and creating the Wal-Mart empire.

This story has greater implications for the Grand Rapids area than many of us realize, I think. Refusing to sell not only kept the Meijer corporation here as a major employer and a model family business, but it kept the increasingly successful Fred Meijer here as a major philanthropist and model civic leader.

I am quite certain that Fred and Lena Meijer would still have been wonderfully generous and engaged in our community had he sold back then. But they would very likely not have had the capacity to do so on the scale with which they have. And that decision solidified their strong connection to Grand Rapids in a way that probably inspired their later efforts to give back to the region over the years.

Think of all the things we might not have in our town without Fred’s local giving and leadership. Certainly not the beautifully renovated Grand Rapids Civic Theater, or miles and miles and miles of nature trails. The hospitals and universities (my employer especially) would not have as many impressive buildings and programs they have today. And one of the country’s premier cultural institutions — the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park — might not be the jewel of our city. It might be in Arkansas.

A few years ago, The Chronicle of Philanthropy published a study ranking the most and least generous metropolitan areas in the country. The Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland area was No. 2 overall, behind Salt Lake City, Utah. Many saw this ranking as an artifact of the high level of religious tithing in these areas, and certainly this is the major explanation for Salt Lake City’s giving.

But our region has another feature that rivals religion as a motivator for high levels of giving. We have a tradition of family-owned businesses that grow very successful here, remain active here, and create wealthy families who live and give here. This tradition of local philanthropy is easy to take for granted. But trust me, it is not something you find in other cities, at least to this extent.

Prominent families give consistently and substantially, and locally. They hold each other to this shared expectation of philanthropy, and they coordinate their giving in collaborative ways I’ve not seen so well developed elsewhere.

All those familiar names on buildings and nature trails and essential programs around town are evidence of this distinctive tradition of local family philanthropy, but there is also a lot of generosity that goes on beyond the naming gifts.

We need to remember that our region would be very different without these local commitments by local families. We need to remember that it would be very different without Fred Meijer.

The challenge now is to continue this into the future, as those leaders who established the special culture of philanthropy pass away, or hand over the reigns to the next generation. Like any tradition, ours is only as good as the people and practices that carry it on.

We probably have not seen the last of Fred Meijer’s local philanthropic legacy. But his best legacy might just be that he helped establish a tradition of local generosity and civic leadership that is carried on by future generations.

I think we can all best honor Fred’s legacy here by giving here, like Fred did.

Michael Moody holds the Frey Foundation Chair in Family Philanthropy at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University.